


Coda

by Trillian_Astra



Category: Brick (2005)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Post-Movie, messed up dumbasses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 15:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A coda to the movie. Brendan and Laura and Tug, going their separate ways and dealing with the consequences - but they can't quite get away from each other.</p><p> </p><p>(an old fic from my LJ that I thought I'd put up here)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coda

Emily Kostich dies. A dealer called the Pin disappears from the streets.

Not everyone gets to walk away.

~

In the end, all that the bull could really pin on Laura was possession. Her parents had a good lawyer, an expensive one. She got off light. Her parents packed her off to boarding school.

She went on to college at Columbia. Her parents insisted that she try to get her life back on track, after what they started to call _that awful business_. She isolated herself from her old life. They got her a therapist.

~

Tug went down for what happened to Emily and Dode. He entered a guilty plea, and showed remorse 

(remorse for Emily, because he'd loved her)

and the jury looked at him in the dock in his second-hand suit, and they felt sorry for him. 

They returned a guilty verdict, on both counts. He got twelve years. 

Laura found out what jail he was in, and wrote to him once.

All she said was _I'm sorry_.

~

Laura apologised a lot after what happened. To Tug, her parents, her friends, the school, the police... she realised one day that it wasn't helping anyone, and she wasn't making herself feel better, so she stopped.

~

Brendan laid low after what happened. Stayed off everyone's radar. Went to class, ate lunch alone behind the school, didn't talk to anyone (except when the Brain found him, occasionally, to ask if he was OK).

He wasn't.

Brendan went to college. He needed to get out of town, he knew that. Test scores weren't an issue. He ended up going to NYU.

~

Brendan liked NYU. He could be different there, with people who didn't know him or his past. He even started to make friends. He did well in his classes, and stayed out of trouble.

If Laura's parents had hoped that Columbia might help her, they were disappointed. She ditched her therapist, dropped out of college, went completely off the rails.

Brendan saw her in a bar, and paled as if he'd seen a ghost. He blinked and turned back to the friends he'd come out with.

~

Brendan graduated from college. Laura didn't.

Laura worked a series of jobs – waitressing and tending bar, mostly – and she survived. Brendan drifted into a job at a newspaper, and worked his way up to becoming a reporter. Laura read his articles in the paper. 

That job was how Brendan met Tug again. 

~

Tug had, to everyone's surprise, been a model prisoner. The newspaper was doing a feature on the successful rehabilitation program at the prison, and Brendan was sent to interview him for the feature.

They sat on either side of the glass. For a long time they looked at each other. Brendan asked a few questions, Tug answered them.

Then Tug said, _I'm sorry_.

Brendan looked at him. _Don't_ , he said.

~

Tug was released from prison when he was twenty-eight years old. 

He went to a bar, and bought himself a beer. He felt someone staring at him, and looked up. The bartender, the one who'd served him his beer, was Laura.

He stared back. Neither of them said anything. He left his beer and walked out.

Laura followed him. 

_Please stay_ , she begged him.

 _I've got nothing to say to you_ , he said.

He heard her crying, quietly, behind him, and added, _Leave me alone_.

She swallowed, wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and said, _All right_.

Before he left, she pushed a piece of paper into his hand. He looked at it as he walked away – it was a story torn carefully from a newspaper. The byline read _Brendan Frye_.

~

Tug found Brendan easily, through the newspaper.

They went to a diner together. Brendan bought the food. They talked a little. 

Brendan had a spare room in his apartment; he offered it to Tug, saying, _Just until you find somewhere_. 

~

Later that night, Brendan said, _I'm sorry_.

Tug shook his head. _You've got nothing to be sorry for_.

(A nice sentiment, Brendan thought, even though they both knew it wasn't true.)


End file.
